For $35.00 more buying the T/C Venture is a no-brainer.
+1 . . . not even a hesitation over $50, much less $35, for me.
My younger son's .243 is a Venture Compact and I have good experience of two others owned by friends; .25'06 and .270. All three are good shooters. The .270 owner uses factory ammunition, but the .243 and .25'06 get fed handholds, neither is very choosy about bullet or load and some of the combinations have yielded downright excellent results with several weights of charge through an obvious sweet spot.
The trigger group isn't a thing of simplistic machined beauty, if you're into stripping rifles down to the small bones, but it's not prone to failure and it works just fine with a good break and it's not too heavy. The rifle on the whole seems plenty durable for typical hunting purposes, as well. I say that because my son's .243 has been hunted steady for four seasons now, took a dunking once, fully submerged, when he hooked his boot on a tree limb in dark water. We stripped it down and cleaned everything, and no one would ever know such had occurred. Trigger and bolt never skipped a beat and have never showed any sign of rust.
You might try the Hunting Rifles forum for a few more replies if you need them. I know there were a couple guys fussing about not being able to get their's to shoot, but there's no telling if that's the rifle or the finger on the trigger. The .270 owner I referenced above is not a particularly consistent shooter, but he looks better than normal with his Venture.
